Deception

Deception is tricking your opponent into action or reaction by creating an illusion of attack. During combat, opponents react to input from the five senses: seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and pain, and possibility from the sixth sense of intuition. The better fighter is the one who quickest and best responds to input from the opponent. Reacting to a slight weight shift is faster than waiting until the leg move to react.  However, this quick reaction may be used against a fighter by deceiving the fighter into believing an attack is imminent. Deception may be used to make your opponent react in a specific way so you may counter attack or it may be used to slow your opponent's reaction to give you an opportunity to score with your attack. Deception may take many forms.

Fake

A movement toward your opponent that causes the opponent to react as though you were initiating a particular attack.  It is simulated attack that opens the opponent's guard as he/she reacts to the attack. To slow an opponent's reaction time, you may repeatedly use an ineffective technique to desensitize the opponent's reaction to it and then use it again in an effective attack. For example, fake a jab and hit with a cross.

Timing

A change in rhythm to delay or disrupt your opponent’s reaction time. You establish a certain rhythm so the opponent is used to it and then suddenly change it. It may be as simple as moving rather slowly and defensively for a while, and then suddenly attacking with a blitz of techniques. For example, for a few times use a jab-jab-cross, then use a jab-jab-hesitation-then the cross.

Feint

A movement, facial expression, or words that give gives the opponent a false sense of security. This type of deception is used mostly in street situations. Gestures may include looking or turning away from your opponent, cowering, acting scared, acting sick, pretending to be frail, or saying. "I'm leaving." Immediately after the gesture, you fiercely attack.

In magic's "Theory of False Solutions," the spectator is directed from one solution to another. When the spectator thinks he or she has the solution, the magician proves it wrong. By proving all the solutions wrong, the audience is left with no logical answer. When sparring, when the opponent thinks he or she has figured out your attack sequence, change the sequence a little. Then, when the opponent thinks he or she has figured out your new attack sequence, change the sequence a little. Etc. After a few cycles of this, the opponent will lose confidence in his or her ability to figure you out. 

Simulation and Dissimulation

Simulation is a way of making something look as if it were real, such as acting as if you have an injured right shin to draw an attack to it. People see what they expect to see. If you behave as if you have a friend in the bushes or you have a gun or a knife, the opponent will think it is true. If you are attacked and you defend and counterattack just as if you had a knife in your hand, your opponent will believe you have a knife and focus on the knife hand, allowing you to taken him or her out with the other hand.

Dissimulation is the concealing of something real, such as acting as if you have an injured left shin to keep opponent from striking your injured right shin. Simulation is a positive act that provides a false picture. Dissimulation is a negative act that hides the true picture.

Range

Movements that disguise your range of motion. For example, you might convince your opponent that you have a certain reach with a specific kick, by stopping it short a few times. Then you attack with full extension of the kick.

Ruse

A ruse is a false action to diverts attention from a real action. For example, having a beautiful friend in the stands flirt with your opponent just before and during a match, or pretending to be left-handed when you are really right-handed or ambidextrous.

You cannot make people not think about something; you can only make them think about something. An example is to play the William Tell Overture and tell people not to think about the Lone Ranger. If confronted by two attackers andyou say, "Do not look at me" to the closest attacker, the person will have the urge to look at tyou. However, if you say, "Do not look at me" to the other attacker, the closest attacker will probably not watch you and may direct his or her attention toward the other attacker, giving you the split second edge you need to take out the lead attacker.

Maneuver

A maneuver is a carefully planned and skillfully executed course of action that has no apparent offensive or defensive purpose. For example, slowly moving until a wall is behind you so you may be attacked from behind.

Diversion

A diversion is anything that diverts attention from an attack. Filipino knife fighters considered the "live" hand to be the most deadly hand. Since your opponent is watching your knife, not your empty hand, the empty hand is "live" and may used for all types of attacks when the opponent is transfixed on the blade. A knife fighter may use a bright shiny knife in the leading hand to draw attention, while having a black knife in the trailing hand that will deal the deathblow.

If a magician make a coin vanish, the audience will consider it a challenge and try to figure out where it went and how it was done. However, if the magician vanishes the coin and then makes it reappear somewhere else, then the audience is satisfied and entertained. If you score on an opponent with a technique, the opponent will be wary of you using the technique again. If you have a favorite technique that scores, immediately follow it with one or more techniques that may or may not score but directs the opponent away from the primary technique.